I've been baking a lot of 1.5 pound sourdough Boules, trying different
blends of bread flour and whole wheat or Rye. I think I decided on 85% bread
flour ( Harvest King) and 15% Whole Rye (Hodgson Mills), this makes a bread
that is definitely not made with plain white flour, but it is white enough
to use as an everyday bread, rather than being a whole grain type of
specialty bread. I have been making these loaves with both my own starter
and with one from Carl's friends, both work well, the 'Carl's Oregon Trail'
starter rises a little faster and makes a less sour bread with a rather pale
but tasty crust, the 'Mikey's NJ ' starter rises slower but makes a more
sour loaf, with a richer golden brown crust that I love.
My procedure is to refresh the culture the day before, then after 14 hours
make the dough. About a 4 or 5 hour bulk fermentation with 2 foldings during
it, then the boules are shaped, risen for an hour, and then retarded
overnight. The next morning I take them out of the fridge ( or garage..in
the winter I retard there), give them 3 or 4 hours to warm up and finish
proofing, then into the oven at 550 with steam, reduced to 450 after 5
minutes. 40 minutes later, they are done, internal temperature 203-205 and
the crust just starting to look almost too dark..perfect!
I need to take some pictures of these loaves, they look as good as they
taste! With all the tinkering I actually made too many and had to give a few
away to friends and neighbors, they all told me to keep baking, they don't
mind eating the extras at all :-)
I want to try using a blend of bread flour, whole wheat, and whole rye next,
and then maybe some kind of seeds, maybe sunflower. The idea of olives in
sourdough appeals to me for some reason, I want to try that as well after
reading about it in a few books.
My daughter did take 2 pictures of some really big ( for me at least) 5
pound miches that I baked for my Boy Scout troop's dinner, these were 10%
whole wheat, made with 'Mikey's NJ' starter, and a big hit at the dinner.
Not the best photography, but you can see how pretty these were
http://photo.mike721.com/gallery/baking/P1010345
--
Mikey S.
"Mike Romain" wrote in message
What have you folks baked lately?